E1: Policies and Tools for Mainstreaming 1.5° Lifestyles
Hey, and welcome to the first episode of season five of Advancing Sustainable Solutions. I'm Philipp Montenegro hosting this episode where we will be exploring the European one point five lifestyles project and the involvement of our colleagues at the institute who worked on the Swedish case. We've divided this episode into two separate recordings. In the first part, which was recorded last year, we discuss the importance of the rebound effect of adopting a more sustainable lifestyle, as well as the benefits of using a qualitative research approach, including workshops, to better understand the complexities behind people's lifestyles, choices, and their motivations for change. In the second part of this episode, we'll hear about some of the barriers to switching to a more sustainable lifestyle and why even if we might miss the 1.5 target, it still matters to transition towards more sustainable lifestyles.
Philipp Montenegro:We'll also explore the additional benefits this shift can bring as well as tools like games, the massive online open course that is online now, and numerous articles that can help along the way. So get ready for what we hope will be an interesting and insightful episode. Thanks for listening. Welcome on another episode of advancing sustainable solutions. Today we have three guests here, and I'm really happy to welcome them, especially Anna since it's her last day also.
Philipp Montenegro:So maybe we start with a quick, round of introduction. And, just introduce yourself and what you've been doing here.
Anna Elfström:Hi, everyone. My name is Anna, and I have been working here at the Institute for a year now, as a project assistant on the 1.5 degree lifestyles project, and it's been fun. And it's sad that it's my last day, but I'm happy that I get to do this.
Philipp Montenegro:Yeah. Thanks for having for being here on the show. Really cool, especially on the last day, just to squeeze this in.
Anna Elfström:Thank you for having me.
Philipp Montenegro:Yes. Of course. Jessica?
Jessika Richter:Yes. My name is Jessika Richter, and I am a researcher at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics. And my background is with circular economy policy research mostly and sustainable consumption, which is why I've been involved in the 1.5 degree project as well.
Philipp Montenegro:Oh, great to have you here also. And last but not least.
Matthias Lehner:Hi, everyone. My name is Matthias Lehner. I'm also a researcher at the IIIIW here, also part of the 1.5 degree lifestyles project. And, most recently my work has been concerned with rebound effects and, digitalization.
Philipp Montenegro:Okay. Interesting. And, today, we want to learn a little bit more about the 1.5 lifestyle degree project that you're doing. Could you maybe give us a short introduction, of the project?
Jessika Richter:Okay. I can give a bit of background to the 1.5 degree project. So it's an EU project. We've been working with several case country partners throughout the EU, Spain, Hungary, Latvia, and Sweden, and Germany. So those are the countries we've been working with as case countries, then we also have more research partners throughout, Europe as well.
Jessika Richter:So it's quite a big project. A lot of it is about working in in an interdisciplinary context and also an international context. So that's been a big part of the project. In terms of what we're actually researching, there are several parts that we're that we're looking at. We're looking at the 1.5 degree target.
Jessika Richter:That's why that's part of the the name and the the aim, but also the gap to getting there. We're looking at what is needed to close that gap, particularly with EU countries, and also from a consumption based approach. And when I say that, it's what we're actually the impact and climate impact we're causing, as countries and as individuals here in Europe through our consumption. So that's that's the tie to sustainable consumption. We're also looking at the individual level, what kind of consumption impacts we have in our lifestyles here in Europe, as well as the structural level.
Jessika Richter:So how we can also change the structures in which we live in Europe to be more sustainable and aligned with a 1.5 degree target.
Philipp Montenegro:Why the different shifts on individual focus and systemic focus? And what is maybe the the difference here in the approach on your research also?
Jessika Richter:So the difference when we're when we're looking from the citizen point of view to the structural point of view is also who we're involving in the research. Another thing that is unique about this project is the way that we're doing research. A lot of it is through cocreation workshops and thinking labs that we call it. So when we're working at the individual level, we're actually working with citizens in the case countries that I mentioned earlier. When we're working at the structural level, we're often working with different stakeholders from different sectors.
Jessika Richter:So policymakers, people working in municipalities, people working in businesses, people working in NGOs, so on a more organizational level and and at that structural level for the changes.
Philipp Montenegro:And how much of this, like, now talking on a personal level, how much of the aims and the research that you're doing, were already known to you before doing this research? So how much of the changes towards the 1.5 lifestyle degrees were already, something that you were interested in or something that you're now figuring out or now opening up through this research?
Matthias Lehner:As Jessica pointed out briefly there, I would also, I would agree that the rebound part of our work is maybe the least intuitive. Because otherwise, I mean, what we do is very relevant. And even though it's not revolutionarily new that, driving cars and flying planes and eating meat, has a big carbon impact. It still is a problem that has to be solved. You know, just being aware of it doesn't solve it.
Matthias Lehner:But what is newer, though very relevant in research and and and by now, at least in the research community, very well, supported by findings also is this thing called the rebound effect. Because it is easy to think about which behavior, which individual behaviors have to be changed and then basically stop there and say, well, great. I've sold my car. Now I've done my part for climate change. And, obviously, I have a lower footprint.
Matthias Lehner:But obvious but that is not necessarily the case. And that is expressed, with this term rebound effect, which is the fact that, when you change your behavior in one way, it often ripples through other behaviors. And and so there's further behavior changes that might easily increase your carbon footprint, again, in particular, of course, when you save money by changing a behavior.
Philipp Montenegro:Could you elaborate on that and give an example, maybe sticking to the car? So when someone, sold sells their car, what is then a rebound effect that is maybe typical that you now found out, according to this?
Matthias Lehner:Well, that's not something we found out. That is well established in literature, and cars are a commonly used example. I would rather than explain it by talking about what happens when you sell your car, I would I would go, I would, focus on, like, a more typical typical example for the rebound effect, which is just efficiency gains. A car engine becoming more efficient. And that that is well documented that that has happened, over the last hundred years.
Matthias Lehner:Cars have become incredibly more efficient, but we're not using less gasoline for that. Rather the opposite. And that is because using the using the car has become cheaper and thus we use it more and find new ways to use it also. So both on a on an individual level, it means the car being cheaper increases the likelihood that you use it more. And on a societal level, the car as like a tool being cheaper, makes it more available to be used in many contexts.
Matthias Lehner:And that is what has happened on both an individual level and a societal level. That there's just like tons of ways in which internal combustion engines are used for transportation and other, means. And that is very well established that, behavior changes that also, mean cost savings have a rebound effect. And that is, a problem for, for, climate change, if you look at it that way.
Philipp Montenegro:And I think another aspect there was also that even though the efficiency is getting better, the cars are getting heavier and then using more. So even though we might have stronger and more efficient, engines, just because we have heavier cars and use them more, the gains that we get from efficient, motors
Jessika Richter:Then we could say it depends because we do have actually lighter cars, but we're buying bigger cars. So when you say heavier, it's important to also think, okay. Why are they heavier? It's not heavier because we are buying the same car, but it's heavier material. In fact, it's the opposite.
Jessika Richter:We're actually getting lighter materials. There are more plastics with cars and less metal. But we are buying bigger cars. We see this SUV, effect as well that we're getting bigger and bigger. And that's also something that we see already established in the literature that there is an escalation of consumption in terms of size of what we're buying.
Jessika Richter:But if we return also to this example, like efficiency, yes, is is established that we can't get there to a 1.5 with just efficiency strategies, the rebound effect being a major barrier to that. But even if we have sufficiency strategies, even if we're giving up our car, we can still have rebound if we're not thinking holistically around lifestyles. And there, the classic is people who give up their car and instead fly, and instead not fly to replace their car, but instead say, I don't have a car, so I can fly. And this is what we call the moral licensing effect where you feel like you're offsetting one behavior with another. But the end result is it's not the gains that were predicted from giving up your car, that it is compensated by having increased vacations by flight, instead.
Jessika Richter:So we see that. We also see that the opposite way. People might stop flying and then use the car more. It's, again, a different overall effect, but still a rebound effect that we see.
Philipp Montenegro:Now when you just talked about some of the barriers, what other barriers do you then see maybe for a 1.5 lifestyle that you're trying to address with this research and this project?
Jessika Richter:Yep. Here, I can say a little bit, and I think Anna can say even more about another side that we are looking at when people are adopting different lifestyle changes is not only what kind of rebound effects might happen and what they do with their money or their time instead and why they're doing what they're doing, but also what kind of other effects happened. What happened to their social lives? What happened to their mental health? And here, we also found some barriers to people adopting lifestyle changes that they might not have had the knowledge or support, that they might have been scared that this is different than what their friends are doing and what their family is doing, and that they might be judged.
Jessika Richter:It's not the normal thing in society to do some of these behaviors to stop flying, and then you don't join your friends when they're going to Spain for the weekend. So you do miss out, and we we talked with citizens about these kind of effects as well and what they did about them, what they did instead. And I'll let Anna say more about this.
Anna Elfström:Yes. So like Jessica said, in in one of the workshops that we held this year, we, we asked citizens, what what happened. Like, everything on the spectrum from from like, everything that can happen in your life, basically, We we asked a really broad question to get a lot of results to see what what happens when you give up your car, or what happens when you give up meat, or what happens when you reduce your living space, and what happens when you give up flying. And we got, some really, really interesting results, and I think also people started to reflect on this because people might not have reflected on this earlier. So it made people think, and, like, yeah, like Jessica said, many people felt a social exclusion, because they were different.
Anna Elfström:And a way then for them to to mitigate this negative effect was to seek out other people that were, doing the same same lifestyle changes and seek support through these, social networks, like new networks. And, another another thing was that people might feel like they avoided certain, topics when with their friends because it felt, loaded, you know, meat, for example, or flying. And so they avoided maybe these topics and maybe also going to certain places like barbecues because it was all socially awkward for those that were, vegetarian. But but but they they also found new friends and new knowledge in this, and they tried to, yeah, create this this this new this new identity a little bit, in order to support their their new choices. And, and some of their lifestyle changes were a lot more, like, ethically loaded and some were not so, yeah, they they didn't have so much to do with identity, all of them, but some of the lifestyle changes did.
Anna Elfström:And, those psychological approaches were really, really important for the participants in our workshops.
Philipp Montenegro:I can imagine it's a big, impact. And then when you conducted these workshops, how did you approach or how did you find these participants? And when doing this, did they have the same motivations behind their changes? Was it always environmental reasons or were there different reasons behind that that then led to these changes, but out of different motivations maybe?
Anna Elfström:We we tried to recruit, like, at a very diverse group, from from all different ages and all different, like, urban and rural citizens. And we, we found that not everyone had given up their car or their flying habits or whatever for environmental reasons. That was not the motivation for all of them, and that was not also that wasn't the point. We we we'd rather want, like, a diversity to to show that you can give up your car or do this lifestyle changes for different reasons.
Matthias Lehner:I just wanna add that here. One thing we, aimed for in this research project was to capture and and also deal with the the the complexity of different lifestyles. Because, one thing that I think that one can forget in the public debate, but then that also complicates, things for policy makers, for example, especially when you then consider things like the rebound effect is that lifestyles can look very differently, of course. And so policies impact different people very differently. And we saw that in the, because what is maybe necessary to point out here is that we did not do, most of our work was qualitative in nature in order to get, to to to understand the depth of decisions and behavior and behavior change.
Matthias Lehner:So these are we didn't collect, statistically representative sample. But what we did is, work with diverse people to capture the the the variation in behaviors. And we did have people, that that differed even though they could have a similar carbon footprint. They differed very much in, like, where their carbon footprint comes from. Is it from housing?
Matthias Lehner:Is it from transportation? Is it from food? You know? And that that changed, of course, very much what type of behavior change was necessary and what had an impact for them. And the other thing, that we did that was, I think also surprising for many of the participants is the the amount of behavior change or how much behavior change is necessary in a way to achieve the 1.5 degree lifestyle.
Matthias Lehner:And and as, Anna just said, it became in our work, it became clear well, we were aware of that because of the numbers, but the participants also became, I think, aware of the fact that the simple changes that maybe do not impact their social environment, their social context that will not have an impact on their mental well-being and require more fundamental changes to their, lifestyle. Those are not enough. You know, the the low hanging fruits, the low hanging fruits, will not do the trick, basically. What are examples there?
Jessika Richter:So some examples of low hanging fruits are things like changing your light bulbs, switching off the lights when you go out. Just more efficiency switches as well. Even if you have money, it's easy to install the technology that is needed. So these efficiency strategies we were talking about before, maybe giving up a little bit of things, meatless Monday. You know, these are not so big.
Jessika Richter:And it comes across when you're one of our workshops was playing a game to get down to the 1.5 degree lifestyle. And there you could see there were small pieces to get there and there were big pieces. And the big pieces were some of these strategies that we mentioned before that we looked at in the rebound workshops of giving up your car, stopping flying completely, giving up meat completely, or living in a smaller housing or shared housing. These were bigger pieces in that board game. Another thing I think that was interesting that also differentiates our qualitative research, as Matthias mentioned it is, versus quantitative research, was often in quantitative, you get a snapshot of people's preferences, what they're willing to do or not, what they say they will do or not.
Jessika Richter:And here in the discussions, what was also interesting was finding not only when the participants came up across, like, that they needed to do more substantial lifestyle changes, many of them in the first respect would say, I don't want to do these or it doesn't work to do these. But when you went deeper and asked them, what would make you want to do this? What would make this easier to do? It wasn't that they were against it without any conditions. It's that they would change their preferences under certain conditions.
Jessika Richter:So another part of the project was finding out under what conditions would people adopt these lifestyle changes that in first take, they would be opposed to.
Philipp Montenegro:What will be an example there that you maybe remember?
Jessika Richter:Yeah. An example there would be about flying as well as it was often more expensive to go by train, and I don't have time to go by train. If I had more time, if it was more efficient, or if it was not so cheap and compelling to go by flight and not so normal that all my friends were flying as well, I could see myself giving up flying. It is not a necessity in a lifestyle for most people. It is just to be normal.
Philipp Montenegro:And that's maybe then a good example also to understand the individual and the systematic levels, of it where you said that if flying wouldn't be that, cheap and if trains would be more accessible and culturally more, normal, basically. So these are not just on the individual level.
Matthias Lehner:And and I would like to add another example, which, relates also to another part of our methodology in the workshops, and that is visioning workshops or to to provide, so instead to talk instead of talking about the barriers and the status quo to flip the coin and say, here's the future, a future that is more aligned in a more or less in line with the 1.5 degree lifestyle. How do you feel about that? And so instead of telling people, or instead of asking people, well, how are you gonna solve that? How are you gonna get from where you are today to the future that we need? Instead, say, here's one possible future.
Matthias Lehner:How would you like that? And there, it was interesting, to
Philipp Montenegro:if I now think about
Matthias Lehner:the housing example, in particular, living smaller, giving up living space and or sharing shared living, because those were one of two of the least favorable options in our initial work. When we asked people like, what could you imagine doing? Those were really not popular in none of the countries. Basically, there was agreement across the five case countries that
Philipp Montenegro:no, I don't want
Matthias Lehner:to live small and no, I do not want wanna share.
Philipp Montenegro:And all for the same reasons also? Or just, like, flat out similar?
Matthias Lehner:Yeah. Similar. It had to do with privacy, with comfort, with, kind of a sense of freedom and ability that comes from your living quarters and living space, space in itself, possibilities to store things, to have things, to own things, you know. You know, in infamously, people fill the space they have. Right?
Matthias Lehner:And, it's not easy for us to give up what we have. So a multiple multitude of reasons, but pretty similar across across the case countries. But then when we instead said, so here's the future. You do live smaller. You do share more.
Matthias Lehner:But it's also more social. You know your neighbors. It's, you know, that when you add the social component to it, the fact that, you don't need to spend as much, time taking care of your, home, then we found, a lot more receptive audience. And then people were also a lot more willing to dis to discuss these ideas and be like, well, I I could imagine, having my, friends over for barbecue in a common space as long as there is a common space, and I can count on it being available. So, you know, and and there comes in again the the systematic or the the structural part because people themselves are unlikely to build common barbecue spaces, not least because they're not allowed to, but in a context, in an environment where they are provided with these spaces, increasing individual space and, and like the the size of the space that you have appear to be less relevant?
Anna Elfström:So, it's interesting about the the smaller living space, because, when we asked the participants what happened in their life, like, good and bad effects from from that. I think many of the other lifestyle changes, a lot of the negative effects were that they felt, limited in a certain way, like, a loss of freedom. I can't fly. I can't drive my car, that sort of thing. But in the living smaller group, a lot of the positive effects were a sense of freedom that they could declutter.
Anna Elfström:They had so much less stuff. And, and they didn't have to spend so much time, like Matthias said, on cleaning and maintaining the the space. And also the that that saved money because you you you live smaller. You don't have to spend so much on heating, for example. So, I think that's an interesting aspect that those that actually did this big thing that was, like, hard for people to to say that they wanted to do, those that have done it, they had a lot of, positive things to to say about, yeah, their sense of freedom freedom.
Philipp Montenegro:And on that note, also, I guess, it makes a difference how you frame it. So I remember during the lunch seminar that you hold, a few weeks ago, you also said that many people gain also new connections, new social interactions, and, more freedom now, as you said in this, example when decluttering, which often is maybe in conflict with the question of giving up, giving up flying, giving up eating meat, giving up having a car. So I guess that's also a big aspect of this research maybe showing that it's not just about giving up, but also of reevaluating and gaining things towards a better future, as you'd said now, imagining a great future instead of saying, imagine giving up all of this.
Anna Elfström:Definitely. And that's that's something that, you asked before what was the surprising thing about this research. And I think that was, for me, a surprising thing that people had so much positives to share. You know, a lot of good things can happen. When you when when you make a big lifestyle change, it's it's gonna have a big impact, but those can also be good impacts.
Anna Elfström:And that's, that's something that we learned. And and it there's a there's a plethora of different things that can happen. There's no one, one thing that happens. So that's also the the variety of people that we had showed that a lot of things can happen.
Jessika Richter:Yep. And I think this idea of framing and the positive message is really important for people to hear as well. When we go out and talk to with citizens, often they'll ask, who are these people that had they adopted these lifestyle changes, and where did you find them? And the implication is almost clear. They're saying, are did they come from caves?
Jessika Richter:Like, where have you found these, 1.5? Because there has been a narrative that has been more negative around giving up with climate change and about the negative consequences. And I think it is, important to flip this and talk about the co benefits and what is gained from moving towards sustainable lifestyles as well. And so that's a message for citizens themselves, but it's also a message for policymakers. And it is something that is really important in our project that we are crafting the results and the different messages for different stakeholders.
Jessika Richter:So we are talking to the media. We are talking to policymakers. We are talking to businesses, and we are talking to citizens themselves about the out the, results of this project. Mhmm.
Philipp Montenegro:And how do you share this then? And, how do you make them more accessible that people actually don't understand, oh, this is someone like me that did this change, and it's not someone coming out of a cave that, is reducing the impact?
Matthias Lehner:Well, actually, and I apologize
Philipp Montenegro:for that. Instead of answering your question now, I'm gonna
Matthias Lehner:go back to a previous question that you've asked, about who our main recipient is or target audience. Because and invite my colleagues to disagree with me. But even though we study first and foremost individual lifestyles, I mean, the main recipient has to be policy makers. And we and that it could almost sound, like, counterintuitive to how the project is set up, but not really. Because what we are primarily interested in is what prevents like, what what what are the barriers for individuals from, to go from where we are now to where they have to go and the complexity in that.
Matthias Lehner:We do involve stakeholders directly or policy makers, as we've said, but we also in many ways work with the individuals in order to better understand where kind of where the levers are in order to get from A to B. And what is
Philipp Montenegro:then something that you hope or maybe want to give on to policy makers, that they actually then should take as a learning from this project?
Jessika Richter:I think we have several policy briefs that are coming out of the project and policy recommendations, and there are different parts to this as well. So there are parts to how to support people adopting the lifestyle changes. So we have the lifestyle changes communicated and what policies would enable those. I mean, some of them are as as Matias mentioned. It is about making the the climate, harmful activities more expensive and enabling the alternatives.
Jessika Richter:But we do have to look at both what we want to have less of and what we want to have more of. So it's not just about making something more expensive, but also enabling the alternatives that we want to see. I think for policymakers, it is also important, this framing and norms question of what kind of examples we're giving to citizens and to society and what kind of narratives that we're we're framing this not just as cutting back and doing less and making things more expensive, but having a higher quality of life, having increased well-being, and really focusing on the benefits from these types of policies that need to be put in place.
Philipp Montenegro:Which then maybe even goes as far as reflecting and questioning our current lifestyles and being like, well, what is it actually that we are so used to that might necessarily not be, something that we as society or as individuals need? And then therefore, when we give up on these things, we gain something as with all the clutter and the consumption, some sorts of overconsumptions actually tie us back. As you then mentioned in the example, when people declutter, they feel more free by giving up these things. So in a way, reflecting some negative aspects of the current lifestyles and looking for positive and more environmental, future lifestyle, like, tomorrow lifestyle, basically.
Jessika Richter:Yep. And I think that what you've hit upon too is that we need to go beyond efficiency and also be focusing on sufficiency as well. What is enough for a good life?
Matthias Lehner:What I would like, to add here in terms of takeaways for policymakers is and and Jessica mentioned this possibility for win win solutions. You know? Because one thing that I think sometimes is there's there's sometimes a little bit of a misrepresentation of the our current lifestyle when talking about climate change in terms of, like, what has to change. It it would almost if you listen sometimes to a to a climate debate, it would almost sound like we have the perfect life, all of us. And then there's this unfortunate issue of climate change.
Matthias Lehner:But if you look at society more broadly, we, of course, have lots of other issues that have to deal with mental health and with physical health. You know, there's in in other policy areas, and policy makers are very aware of all the issues that, come from people feeling stressed and overwhelmed. And, well, again, mental and physical health is not great in in in some ways in society. And, there a less carbon intense lifestyle could easily also mean a A healthier stressful lifestyle. Yes.
Matthias Lehner:I mean, just take transportation. Cycling is a great way to keep in shape. It's a simple way. And it has, there's no question that it has a positive health effect compared to sitting in a car.
Philipp Montenegro:Yeah. Or walking.
Matthias Lehner:Walking or sitting.
Philipp Montenegro:Yes, of course. Exactly.
Matthias Lehner:And and the other thing is also true because when we talk about when we talked about these, bigger behavior changes in particular, for example, flying, then that is very often perceived initially as something negative. I give up flying. I cannot explore the world anymore as I used to and stuff. But the alternative, it seems, is then often to instead explore your close environment more, including more time to build local connections. And, and that is a very positive outcome from, this behavior change to be more rooted in your local environment, to have closer ties to neighbors and other social connections.
Matthias Lehner:Because in the end, if you're honest, what will make your life better is not the two weeks a year that you spent among strangers on Bali, but the fifty weeks a year that you spent with your neighbors. And whether you have good neighbors and you like them and you have a good social network around you or not makes a lot more difference. So it has a
Philipp Montenegro:lot more impact on your life. That's definitely something I will take away from this, episode to reflect on this and to maybe appreciate the environment around us even more. What things have you maybe or are you taking away from your research on this project?
Anna Elfström:Well, what I'm taking away from from working with this project is how how fun it is to talk to citizens about this, and how engaged they are, and how how willing they are to to share, and to be a part of this change. Even though it's hard, it's it's really fun to talk about, and it's really fun to hear about these ideas. And I've been really inspired both by stakeholders and by the citizens that we have talked to. And, there's so many different ways that you can change your lifestyle. There's no one way that one fits all.
Anna Elfström:Like, it's it's also what's interesting about the project is different nations, different cultures. There's there's so many different ways that we can we can all do something, and that's been the main takeaway for me.
Philipp Montenegro:Mhmm. And, Yesika, what is your main takeaway?
Jessika Richter:I think, actually, you captured my main takeaway before too. I think in talking to the citizens and and seeing, okay, how much of this is even possible now still highlighted to me the barriers there and why it is still not normal and the real need to focus on these structures, a lot of which is really questioning the systematic structures we have now. So I think I've become more critical of the on the structural level and really more focused on that level, knowing that there are already lots of citizens willing to change and lots of citizens who even see the benefits of the change already.
Philipp Montenegro:What is your main takeaway, Matthias? Was it the previous previous points maybe? Yeah.
Matthias Lehner:Well, I'm I mean, I I agree with what my colleagues, said, before me. I maybe wanna say two things then. I do think that policymakers underestimate the willingness for people to change if change happens in an orderly and fair way. Then people
Philipp Montenegro:also, I guess.
Matthias Lehner:Yes. If what if everybody contributes, I think people are, in the medium to long term, way more receptive to changes than policy makers think. Personally, I what I take away from the project is the importance of community. Community being this very powerful enabling tool for, individual behavior change, Because I think it makes it more fun and it simply, it provides the support network, that most people need. Only few of us have the willpower, you know, to power through some some change without, any environmental or external support.
Matthias Lehner:And, and so I think one crucial factor that that I took away from from our results was that most individuals that seem to have succeeded in in a major behavior change did so with the support of a community that they found. In particular, in the in the beginning, changes are difficult because first, there's all the chaos, and then you find the new structure and new routines and things that you like about them. And and their community is,
Philipp Montenegro:is an enabling factor that is important. So maybe on that, how can listeners and general public maybe, reach and read some of your findings and get maybe inspired. You mentioned a game before. Are any of these or what are your recommendations for interested, listeners to, get some of these inspiration, inspirational stories and learnings?
Anna Elfström:Well, like you said, we we do have the game, the climate puzzle, and here in Lund, at least, that puzzle will be available soon, at Circle Center, where you can borrow it and play it.
Philipp Montenegro:The local library
Anna Elfström:of things.
Philipp Montenegro:Okay. Great.
Anna Elfström:Exactly. I don't know the the the website by heart, but Jessica does, I hope.
Philipp Montenegro:And we'll add it also to the description of this episode.
Anna Elfström:But
Jessika Richter:Great. Because it's 1.5lifestyles.eu.
Philipp Montenegro:Okay. We'll find that. Well, thanks so much for being here on, the show and for giving us so many great insights and inspirations also, and all the best, and see you around.
Jessika Richter:Thank you. Bye.
Philipp Montenegro:Welcome to another round of discussions with the one point five lifestyles team here at the Institute. And I'm happy to have a few more speakers as last time we talked with Matthias, Anna, and Jessica. And now we're joined again by Jessica, but also Oksana, Mariana, and Andreas. So welcome, everyone.
Oksana Mont:Hello. Oksana Mont here. I'm a professor in sustainable consumption governance at the Institute and part of the 1.5 team.
Philipp Montenegro:Very nice to have you here. Yes.
Marianne Ekdahl:I'm Marianne Ekdahl research assistant here at the Institute.
Jessika Richter:Jessica Richter, associate senior lecturer at the IIIEE.
Andrius Plepys:And Andrius Plepys I'm a researcher in the project.
Philipp Montenegro:Thanks so much for being here. And maybe we can start with you, Oksana. Could you give us a little bit of an overview of the 1.5 lifestyle project and the work that you've been doing as it's coming to an end?
Oksana Mont:Gladly. So we are talking about a European project, a four year project that started in 2021. It's called 1.5 degrees lifestyles, policies and tools for mainstreaming 1.5 degrees lifestyles. The starting point of the project is that we need to introduce and implement behavioral changes in addition to technological improvements that we see in order to be in line with the Paris agreement target of 1.5 degrees warming in the world. And what we've done is that we started by identifying lifestyle options.
Oksana Mont:We've done a lit review and identified almost 500 options that people can implement. Then through validation with experts, we narrowed this choice to 50 options. And then what's important for the project and what's one of its unique points is that we calculated how much reduction of CO2 can be reached with each of these options. And the idea is that we really need drastic reductions. If we have 2030 as our goal, then Swedish, for example, footprint needs to be to 2.5 tons of CO2, and by 2050 we need to be down to 0.7.
Oksana Mont:Currently, on average, we have 6.2 tons, so we have a long way to go. And that also shows how important this project is. We also employed quite engagement, kind of participatory methods in the project. We engaged with the citizens, invited them, and run workshops with them. In the project also, we used climate puzzle, where people can calculate their footprint, but then also in dialogue discuss what changes they can implement, to reduce the CO2 impacts, what kind of hinders they encounter, and under what conditions they can overcome these barriers.
Oksana Mont:So this is also important and led to important publications and realizations about rebound effects and other side effects, both positive and negative, that can help us, as researchers, but also us as individuals to implement the changes that need to be implemented.
Philipp Montenegro:And I guess it goes further also than just a carbon footprint calculator, right, which you can find online, but then I guess through a game and gamification of it to have a longer discussion and go more in-depth.
Oksana Mont:Yes. With the carbon footprint, you know how large your footprint is, how many tons of CO2 your lifestyle emits. But then we, come up with a list of 50 lifestyle options. What you actually can do, calculate it with how much reduction potential each of these options associates with. And with Climate Basel, you basically lay a path for how much reductions you can achieve, what are easy changes you can implement easily, or by paying economically for them, for example, installing solar panels, but which other behavioral changes you can implement to reach actually the targets of 2,030 or 02/1950.
Philipp Montenegro:And since it's already quite known that we need to reduce our impact and have a more sustainable lifestyle, why is it then maybe that there is such a high acceptance for for it, for a 1.5 lifestyle or a more general sustainable lifestyle?
Marianne Ekdahl:Well, as you as you mentioned, acceptance is a very important factor in that. And, we have actually studied in the research project project how acceptance varies between different lifestyle options and countries. And acceptance varies really a lot. And we all know that from our everyday life that, I mean, people have a high acceptance for certain things, but certain things, I mean, they're really, really against. And and, of course, that's very important for policy makers as well to to and it also kind of directs how they make decisions.
Marianne Ekdahl:But in general, I mean, a very general pattern is that we can see a high level of acceptance for lifestyle options with low climate impact, but that really needs a financial investment. And one very good example is, installing solar panels that in at least in the Swedish setting, it has a low climate impact. But it requires a financial investment and it it's also visible for the neighbors and so on. But it doesn't really require a behavioral change. But then there is a low level of acceptance for for, I mean, the lifestyle options that really have the highest, impact in terms of climate benefit.
Marianne Ekdahl:For but that really requires a behavioral change in everyday life. And for example, one example is switching to a vegetarian, or vegan diet or, moving to a smaller, smaller living space or or sharing housing. And, and in those cases, in those lifestyle options, I mean, they very often lead to financial savings. So you save money, but, but you don't need an investment, but still acceptance is, is really low. So that's, that's really, interesting.
Marianne Ekdahl:And the reason why this is, important is of course that policy makers need need to understand this. And of course, I mean, most of them do understand that, but it's also very important that we have also found in the studies that individuals can increase, their acceptance under certain so called conditions of acceptance. And this means that policy makers can also contribute to higher acceptance levels. And, in in the context we have had with policy makers and, civil servants from, from, municipalities and so on, we can see that there is a high interest from policy makers on this topic.
Philipp Montenegro:And what are conditions for acceptance?
Oksana Mont:That's an important question where policy makers and municipalities can, help. For example, in our study of smaller living spaces, it's much easier for people to move to smaller living spaces in certain times of their lives. For example, when children are grown up and leave the space, then policymakers can help people to reduce, for example, taxes if the properties are changing hands within a family. They also, for people, it's easier than to move maybe to city centre where they don't need to rely on cars so much. People also can, accept much better, for example, shared spaces, if individual spaces are small, but then common spaces are provided.
Oksana Mont:So access to common utilities, extra services, also green areas, then they are much more eager to accept smaller individual living spaces where they have access to shared spaces. It's easier to shift, abandon your car or leave at home if there is a bicycle infrastructure available, shared bikes, well functioning collective transport system, well functioning trains, so that it's easier to not to fly. And these are all examples of how by providing access to infrastructure, and with certain economic incentives, policy makers can increase acceptance.
Philipp Montenegro:Goes back again a little bit to the two different approaches. One, the individual approach, but then also the structural societal approach within the policy makers.
Andrius Plepys:Yeah. You are right. And, the project focused on these issues quite a lot because if we want acceptance to be accepted, we need to remove the hinders. We have to lower lower the behavioral barriers. And, of course, there is not one solution that fits all.
Andrius Plepys:And in different context, in different consumption areas, hinders could be very, very different. They can be from anything related to structural lock in effects in existing technologies to simple lack of awareness or simple, misperception of benefits that lifestyle changes can bring you. For instance, better health, or it could be better work and family life balance. People can be simply happier by adopting how they move, what they eat, how they communicate to the others, how they together solve these behavioral adaptations. And there, of course, there are many factors that could support a lifestyle change.
Andrius Plepys:Some of them are on the surface. Some of them are deeper. And for instance, citizen engagement always shows that, well, people are better off by solving issues together, seeing examples. Anything from global to very local initiatives can help that. And, sure, people also need economic incentives, incentives that discourage them from unsustainable behaviors and encourage them to consume differently.
Andrius Plepys:For that, of course, there is a lot of room for policy changes that could be different taxation policies, editing out unsustainable products, sunsetting dangerous products to greening energy mix, providing more convenient public transport that Oksana mentioned, make it more convenient for people to make better choices.
Philipp Montenegro:And that also, I guess, then shows that it's not just about the carbon emissions, and it's not just about 1.5 degrees, but also a more sustainable, maybe more social life and communities right even if we might not hit the 1.5 target it's still really relevant to focus on these more sustainable lifestyle choices and changes right
Jessika Richter:right I think the 1.5 degree lifestyle whether it's 1.5 degree or we say that it's a sustainable lifestyle is relevant. It's something that we need and these behavior changes are part of the, of the lifestyle changes we need to fit within basically the planetary boundaries.
Oksana Mont:So though the overall message from the project is that first, we cannot rely only on technological progress to solve environmental problems, important are behavioral changes. The next message is that although behavioral changes at individual level extremely important, they need to be enabled and supported by societal, and infrastructure and institutional changes in society that enable and facilitate behavioural changes. And for that part, we have a number of tools developed in the project, like the mentioned climate puzzle that is available for order, and it can be used both by individuals, but also by municipalities, by schools, anyone in who is involved with engaging the public, in this transition.
Philipp Montenegro:And also you have an upcoming MOOC, right?
Jessika Richter:Yes. So we have an upcoming MOOC. We should say maybe by the time this episode is out, the MOOC is also available on the Coursera platform and it is free to take the MOOC and follow. And it's where we have tried to really, record videos of the different, researchers that are involved in the project. Each talking about the research that they have done as part of the project.
Jessika Richter:So we have researchers from all of our partner, countries and partner institutes talking about that research, sharing the findings, but also then sharing the tools that have been mentioned. So we also will have a guidebook for citizens that walk them through, the different high impact, lifestyle options that have been mentioned. We also walk through all the different structural barriers, but enablers as well. And then we talk about visions of the future and we challenge, those that are taking the MOOC as well to implement a lifestyle change, something major for a short time, and really observe what else changes in their life when they make one change. How do they look at things differently?
Jessika Richter:What do they find easier than expected? What do they find harder than expected? And then share that with other people who are also trying this out in a journey. So it is, it is a fun way to connect with others and to connect with the research project findings as well. So we encourage everybody to look it up on the Coursera platform and join us for the MOOC.
Oksana Mont:We also have, in addition to MOOC, we have a citizen guide, that was mentioned, and we also run now, campaigns on social media where we encourage people to implement these changes and share their stories, both good and bad.
Jessika Richter:And we can say while the project itself will be wrapping up in April 2025, and it will be ending with the sustainable consumption, conference, SCORI conference, where we'll be sharing the final, project findings. The MOOC and the citizen guidebook and some of the resources will be available well after the project has ended. So still look for those resources. They'll live on even after the project has wrapped up in April 2025.
Philipp Montenegro:What are your reflections and maybe learnings or what has surprised you from this project from working on this? Also I think it's really interesting to see a project with so many different countries, focusing on the same, topic, but then with different cultural acceptances, for example, or what is maybe some of the reflections that you have?
Oksana Mont:It was actually fascinating to see the difference between countries. We're all European countries, but then it's hard to talk about reducing, for example, meat consumption in Sweden, but even harder in Hungary where a lot or Spain. So it's these differences, between countries that were fascinating.
Marianne Ekdahl:I think it was interesting to see how, I mean, in our outreach after the project, I think it's interesting to see the interest for consumption based policy and the interest from from policy makers to, for example, reduce, consumption based emissions, working with different ways to develop strategies for reducing consumption based emissions and helping their citizens to to reduce the the emissions from from their their everyday life. Research findings was interesting in that sense.
Andrius Plepys:Everything was interesting. Perhaps, I could add that throughout the project, we had opportunities to hear individual stories. And then what we could extract from those interviews was was fascinated. People are so different, and you can assume that, well, a vegetarian is a vegetarian, but their lifestyles are very, very individual. And they have different motivations and different different behavioral patterns.
Andrius Plepys:It was difficult to connect how people are not consistent in their behavior.
Philipp Montenegro:And I think that's a little bit the advantage of this project also where you went into depth with a qualitative approach where you got to understand the depth of the different choices and the people and persons behind this. And Yessica, what is your take on this project?
Jessika Richter:So one of the lifestyle challenges that we had in one of our campaigns in January was, having a plant based diet and reducing the food waste. And with the food waste or waste in general, I was also trying to reduce packaging. And I think for me, it was eye opening how much, packaging there was to food. And then also going to, we tried a vegan diet for a month as well. And for us, it was, it was easier in some respects when we were cooking at home to, to find new recipes and great new recipes that are now part of our rotation.
Jessika Richter:So that was easier than expected. It was a little harder expected on the social side where I had told people I was doing this and I still went over to people's houses and they're like, we are serving you pork today. I'm like, oh. So I I could really it resonated with me. A lot of the citizens that we had been, talking to in the workshops when they talked about some of the things that they had encountered, it was the same as I was encountering it myself in this challenge as well.
Jessika Richter:But I think that was one of the major learnings of how complex it really is, to make these lifestyle changes, but also how if we start with some it leads to others and while we may not be perfect we can be better.
Philipp Montenegro:Very nice, thanks so much for sharing this. I look forward to playing the game and maybe also through that then, push push for more sustainable or exchange on more sustainable lifestyles. So thanks so much for sharing and being here and looking forward to the mook coming out and to playing around the 1.5 style games thanks so much
Oksana Mont:thank you
